Restaurant Tech / SaaS

bistro.run

The menu, table and reservations OS for modern restaurants. What started as an AI-powered QR menu tool now answers the phone 24/7 with an AI voice agent, takes bookings with deposits, and lets guests pay from their seat. No POS hardware, no app downloads.

Visit site

The challenge and the solution.

Front-of-house runs on missed calls, paper menus and slow checks. bistro.run digitizes all of it without touching the POS.

The challenge

A restaurant's front of house leaks money in small, constant ways: reservation calls nobody can answer mid-service, no-shows on big tables, static menus, and payment flows that hold guests hostage at the end of the meal.

  • Phone rings during service; reservation calls go unanswered
  • No-shows on big tables with no deposit to back them
  • Paper menus can't change price, language or availability
  • Guests wait for the check while card machines make the rounds
  • POS replacements demand new hardware and painful migrations
  • Multi-location owners juggle disconnected tools

The solution

bistro.run is a full front-of-house OS: AI-powered menus, reservations and payments in one platform that complements the existing POS instead of replacing it, and runs entirely in the guest's phone browser.

  • AI voice agent answers the restaurant's phone 24/7 and books reservations
  • Web booking with configurable deposits, party sizes and time windows
  • Per-table QR menus, AI-translated into 12 languages
  • Pay-at-table with tips, settled straight to the bank via Stripe Connect
  • Staff-sent digital checks and ready-to-order floor signaling
  • Private-event lead pipeline with deposit rules by party size
  • Multi-location dashboard with staff roles and tip tracking

Key metrics.

bistro.run in numbers.

24/7 AI phone agent
12 Menu languages
0% Platform fee on table payments
110+ API endpoints

AI in four different jobs.

Voice, vision, generative UI and translation. Each one replaces real front-of-house labor.

AI voice reservations

A dedicated phone line answered around the clock by an AI agent that speaks the caller's language, checks live availability, verifies the guest by SMS and books straight into the dashboard. Settings changes apply on the very next call.

AI menu importer

Upload a photo or PDF of an existing paper menu and AI extracts categories, dishes, prices and descriptions, then generates dish images. Hours of data entry become minutes.

Generative menu designer

A chat that writes real, versioned interface code for a bespoke menu theme. Owners describe their brand; the AI ships the design, with 16 prebuilt themes as starting points.

AI menu translation

Guest menus in 12 languages, translated automatically. Content hashing means only dishes that actually changed get re-translated, keeping every locale current.

The table layer.

Each table gets a printed QR code that never changes, while everything behind it, menu, language, service state and payment, is live.

Secure per-table codes

Every table gets an unguessable tokenized URL behind its QR code, with rate limiting and optional staff-opened sessions to gate service actions.

Ready-to-order

Guests signal from the menu when they're ready. The floor dashboard shows live table state, no app install on either side.

Pay from the seat

Guests self-pay with a tip from their phone, or staff push an exact check to the table. Tips are tracked per server from the day's table assignments.

Payments built for restaurants, not against them.

Marketplace economics designed so the restaurant keeps what it earns.

Direct payouts

Owners onboard once with Stripe Connect and money settles directly to their bank. Revenue comes from subscriptions, not skimming sales.

Deposit engine

Reservation and event deposits with rules by party size and time of day. Fees are grossed onto the guest so the restaurant nets exactly what it set.

No hardware, no migration

Bistro complements the existing POS instead of replacing it. No proprietary terminals, no app downloads for guests.

Tech stack.

The toolchain powering bistro.run, from voice calls to live floor state.

Next.js 16
React 19
TypeScript
Tailwind CSS 4
PostgreSQL
Prisma 7
Redis
Stripe Connect
Twilio
Cloudflare R2
Vercel AI SDK
OpenAI GPT-4o
Google Gemini
Anthropic Claude
xAI Grok Voice
Auth.js
Resend
Durable Workflows

Platform features.

Everything bistro.run ships with.

AI voice reservation agent
Web booking with deposits
Private-event lead pipeline
SMS guest verification
Per-table QR with secure tokens
Pay-at-table with tips
Staff-sent digital checks
Tip tracking per server
Ready-to-order signaling
Menus in 12 languages
Weekly and meal-period menus
16 themes + AI menu designer
AI menu photo importer
Menu analytics dashboard
Multi-location support
Staff roles and invitations
Instacart shopping lists
Stripe subscription billing
Referral program
Admin console

Interested in something similar for your business?

Tell us about your project and we'll put together a free proposal. No commitment, no pressure.

Let's talk Restaurant web design